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Minnesota Wolves at Risk: Defenders Opposes Wolf Hunting and Trapping

(03/11/1999) - Defenders of Wildlife announced today that it strongly opposes
a bill approved Wednesday, March 10, by the Minnesota House Agriculture
Committee to allow a hunting and trapping season of Minnesota wolves. The bill,
introduced by state representative Jim Tunheim (DFL-Kennedy) negates the wolf
management plan that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and a broad
coalition of stakeholders developed after months of intense negotiations. The
wolf bill will go to the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee next
week.

"Establishing a hunting and trapping season on wolves in
Minnesota is not appropriate or justified at this time" said Defenders President
Rodger Schlickeisen. "A diverse group of citizens representing hunting and
trapping interests, farmers, environmentalists, and others agreed on a
management plan, and this wasn't it. This legislation subverts the entire public
participation process."

The bill changes the management plans in other significant
ways, reducing the fine for illegal take of wolves from $2,000 to $250 and
loosening restrictions protecting wolves. Most significantly, the bill sets the
maximum statewide wolf population goal at 1,600, whereas the citizens roundtable
set 1600 as a minimum statewide number. A recent survey of Minnesota's wolf
population determined that approximately 2,445 wolves currently roam the state.

"While Defenders has always recognized that professional
control of wolves that prey on livestock is a necessary evil, allowing random,
non-selective take through public hunting and trapping is a poor wildlife
management decision," warned Nina Fascione, Defenders Associate Director of
Species Conservation. "We have needed to grant the wolf federal protection under
the Endangered Species Act for a quarter of a century, so it is premature to
discuss wolf control by these methods, before the species is even delisted."

In 1974 wolves were listed as endangered throughout the lower
48 states except in Minnesota, where they were listed as threatened. Because of
increasing wolf populations in Minnesota and neighboring Michigan and Wisconsin,
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to delist the species within the
next year.

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Contact(s):

Cat Lazaroff, (202) 772-3270

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